


Thorns

by TekrarSatilacak



Category: Hatchetfield Universe - Team StarKid
Genre: Depression, Emma didn't have the best childhood, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, I wrote this at 3am please spare me, It's dark 0kay, Mentions of alcoholism, Mentions of past abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:49:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28127904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TekrarSatilacak/pseuds/TekrarSatilacak
Summary: Emma catches feelings, and a deadly diseaseits 3am please I cant think of a summary ahhh
Relationships: Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins
Kudos: 24





	Thorns

It was hard being tough. It was hard doing a lot of things, Emma supposed, but nothing compared to emotions. The fact that something that could be so detrimental to relationships, like emotions, was uncontrollable didn’t sit right with her.

Her emotions were hers alone, and so she never shared them with anyone. It was an unhealthy coping mechanism sure, but it wasn’t like Emma had anyone to share with. Her biology professor didn’t count. She’d tried once, but her father was less than pleased. That was the last time she cried, that wasn’t under her covers at 3 am.

That was where her emotions flowed, for lack of a better word. Under her bed covers at 3am was where she cried her own rivers, aptly named Disappointment River and Tragedy River. When she moved, she left the Disappointment and Tragedy Rivers behind her. For the first time in her admittedly short life, she felt happy. Sure, the coatimundi were pains in the ass, but they weren’t her parents.

If she cried the rivers, her parents were the underground water reserve where the water sprung from. They weren’t great. They weren’t even decent to be honest. Every time she set foot in the house was like she was stepping on eggshells. Be quiet so her father wouldn’t get mad. Make her own food so her father didn’t get mad. Get good grades so her father didn’t get mad. Of course, she never had to do anything wrong for him to get mad at her. The fact she wasn’t Jane was enough for him to despise her.

The fact that Emma was also on the spectrum didn’t help. They would get mad when she came home, they didn’t know she had trouble making friends. She was too hostile, even though she didn’t mean to be. Asperger’s was a bitch. The only reason Emma knew she actually had it was because of the biology professor that came in to talk to her class in year 3. He’d noticed she wasn’t the same as the other students and had gotten her tested after lunch that day. A week later, he told her she had Asperger’s.

That opened another can of worms entirely. When he told her parents, they used it against Emma. They wouldn’t tolerate her stimming, a term she learnt after Professor Hidgens had taken her to the doctor after she told him, clearly in distress, that her body was moving on it’s own. Her parents thought she would crack her knuckles, kick her feet, tap her wrists together, and bounce her leg up and down to drive them insane. So she had to train herself not to. It wasn’t as hard now, she didn’t really have much to feel anymore.

Now, as a semi-functioning adult, she had learnt that a few stims were alright. Emma despised stims that could be seen, the calming effect overpowered by the irrational fear that it was abnormal. Normally, she hid behind a “fuck you” attitude, because she both didn’t want to talk to people, and also because it’s all she knew how to do; push people away. Now she would still crack her knuckles often, and she never grew out of the leg-bouncing. Now however, she had picked up rocking, which was nice she supposed. It helped when she spent hours serving people coffee.

But these memories were problems for another day. Right now, Emma had to focus on serving the same shitty coffee and pastries she always did. She leaned, hip resting on the countertop. Her leg was acting up again, and she tried to relieve the pain a bit. When she was in Guatemala, she’d fallen while hiking, and broken her thigh pretty badly. Ever since, she’d had nerve damage, and chronic pain, which always hurt at the worst possible times. Nora walked in, and Emma was sure she was going to be yelled at. Opening her mouth to explain, instead of speaking normally, Emma burst into a fit of coughing. She’d had a cough for a few days, as her entire life seemed to revolve around being as shitty and painful as possible, but when she drew her hand away, there was blood on it.

Not wanting to cause any trouble, she excused herself to the bathroom, as the familiar feeling of needing to throw up rose in her stomach and esophagus. Normally, this wouldn’t worry Emma, she had a very bad habit of drinking herself to sleep every night, but as of late, she hadn’t been doing that. She’d been making an effort, because recently shes developed some… feelings. For a particular man, who was practically the default setting for a male. It was unexpected that Emma Perkins, who was always called an “interesting person” would develop feelings for black coffee guy.

Running the tap, while throwing up in the beanie's bathroom wasn’t what Emma expected to be doing on a Thursday afternoon, but hey! Life had decided that when it needed to relieve stress, it would fuck up her life as entertainment. However, when she saw that what she’d thrown up was a mixture of blood and lilac flowers, that looked like freesia, then Emma was scared. She was scared shitless. That was not supposed to be in her body, what the actual fuck was it doing there, and why hadn’t her stomach acid done it’s fucking job and broken it down, what the actual  _ fuck _ .

Sighing, she flushed the toilet, and wiped her mouth. Emma knew that she would live to regret this, although it seemed she lived to regret in general. She pulled Zoey aside, ignoring the scathing look Nora sent her. Zoey would know what to do about this right? She had to, otherwise Emma was fucked. She was probably fucked either way, but Zoey could help her understand her levels of fucked.

“Emma, this better be important, I have shit to do, things to rehearse and-”

“Work to not do, I get it. But I have… a problem.” Zoey briefly looked up from her phone to glare at Emma. Shit, she might have just fucked up her only chance. Why did she always do this, fuck.

“We all have problems, although you do have more than most.” Emma ignored her, really needing some clarification, or support at this time. Well most times, lets not lie, but now especially. 

“Yeah, well most problems don’t include throwing and coughing up blood and flower petals, do they?”

“No shit? Oh Emma, I’m sorry.” Zoey actually looked remorseful, and Emma’s anxiety spiked. Why was Zoey worried for her? She was gonna turn in a groot-looking motherfucker wasn’t she? She was going to become a plant monster, and cherry on top of a wonderful life already, she would grow into the fucking ground. She always knew she had roots in Hatchetfield, but now she was literally going to have roots in Hatchetfield.

“Sorry for what? Zoey, what’s going on?” Zoey pulled her outside, and Emma was now one ball of anxiety.

“You have hanahaki disease.”

“I have what?” Oh shit this was a disease? Which meant hospitals, which meant bad memories of better times, which didn’t really make sense when Emma thought of it, but this was a bad time, so the bottomline was that Emma did not like the hospital.

“Hanahaki disease. You catch it when you fall head over heels in love with someone.”

“Okay, but why am I coughing up fucking blood?” Okay, so love was the source of this problem, as well as all her other problems. Fucking wonderful.

“Basically, their favourite flower grows in your lungs, and eventually suffocates you.” So she wasn’t turning into a plant monster, she was just dying. Only marginally better than the plant monster thing, but at this point she’ll take any win she can get her hands on.

“Fucking gross! But is there a cure?” Zoey nodded, then shook her head. This was not good. Who nods and then shakes their head, and gives you a good answer.

“I mean, yeah, it goes away if the other person reciprocates the feelings. And theres a surgery that removes the flower, along with the feelings for the person, which is totally inconvenient, but whatever, I guess it makes sense for peoples safety, but it’s not exactly a fairytale ending.” Oh. So a win-win situation. The world can’t fuck you over if you don’t care about anything at all. And Emma could use a healthy dose of not caring, she spent nineteen years caring too much about her life, and what people, mainly her parents, thought of her. Which was usually not at all.

“Tell Nora I have a doctors appointment.” Zoey caught Emma’s arm, as she turned to leave. She was going to try and talk Emma out of it, and it just might work. Mild amounts of peer pressure were usually enough to make her change her mind.

“You’re not actually going to have the surgery are you?” Yes. yes she was. If it killed her, no medical bills to pay.

“Why not? You told me I’ll die if I don’t.” 

“But you could become an emotionless husk Emma! You don’t want that, trust me. Besides, you’ll lose all feelings for the person who caused this.” Also a win. Sure she’d miss him. But on the off-chance it removed all emotion she would miss him. And she could live with that.

“Zoey, I don’t care. I’ve had enough. But if it concerns you so much, then I’ll have the surgery right before I die, alright? Because while this life has been totally shitty, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to die yet. Besides, why should I care whether the black coffee guy likes me or not.”

“Is it really the black coffee guy?” Emma glared at Zoey. Kick her while she was dying, very Zoey of Zoey.

“This is no time to poke fun at me, I’m literally dying.” Zoey grinned sheepishly. Nora came out back, absolutely fuming.

“Where have you two been? I don’t have five fucking arms.” Emma ran inside, apologising to Nora. Inside, She saw black coffee guy standing in line, and went to take his order. He was standing with his sleezy friend, and looked extremely nervous. He was tapping his two fists together, in a very “hot potato” looking gesture. Making their orders, Emma decided that fuck it, if she was going to die, might as well have fun. Writing her address and number on a napkin, she handed it to black coffee guy with his coffee. She was going to put herself out there, and while it might not end in her death, she might make a new friend. 

Two hours and a conversation later, and Emma was already feeling worse. She’d been coughing up flowers every minute, and was sure this was it. She was fucking dead, Emma was absolutely dead. She was dying, this was it for her. It had been a wild, shitty ride, and Emma would like to say she wasn’t scared, but she was. She was more scared than she’d ever been. So, to try and die a peaceful death, she called black coffee guy, who’s name she learnt was Paul. maybe she was scared of dying alone. She’d been searching for death inadvertently her whole life, taking one risk after another. 

Calling Paul turned out to be, like her life, a terrible decision. She spent a minute and a half coughing into the phone, before Paul decided that he was coming over. A resounding success then, mission accomplished, Paul was coming over. Emma had enough energy to open the door, and collapse into Paul’s arms. Well it had to happen sometime.

“Emma! Are you okay?” Emma smiled.

“I collapsed in your arms, coughing up blood, do I look fine?”

“Well… I mean… uhh… yes, you are very pretty? Wait no, you don’t look fine, sorry about that.” She had been there, let Emma tell you, she had been in the middle of several misunderstandings.

“Well Paul, I’m flattered, and dying.”

“What? ‘Scuse me? Like dead dying?” This man would be the death of her, if she wasn’t being suffocated by murder flowers.

“Yes Paul, I’m dying.”

“Oh. Okay… okay…. Okay. Who am I kidding it’s not okay.” Paul was very right. This was not okay. When Emma found herself tearing up, she wasn’t very happy with herself. Emma Perkins did not cry. 

Except Emma Perkins was crying. Emma Perkins was crying into the shoulder of Paul, the black coffee guy, who was also the cause of her tears. Well fuck. The thorns in her lungs constricted, and she coughed again.

“Why are you dying Emma? Why did you have to die? Why?”

“Well Mr Paul, that would be your fault.”

“My fault? How… Emma I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s my fault for falling in love. Cat’s out the fucking bag, does it matter?” Emma paused to cough up her lungs, and probably her liver as well.

Paul looked confused, then he understood. And then he was kissing ehr, and she swore she could feel the thorns unsticking. Which was weird because freesia didn’t have thorns, but she didn’t care at the moment. Because she, Emma Perkins, was going to live. And she was going to do it with Paul.

She later found out that she was, in fact, not dying, but naturally paranoid, she assumed the worst. But don’t we all


End file.
